Zalman HD135 HTPC Case Review

Zalman has been on the pc components market since past century. Through all those years they?ve evolved into one of the biggest silent computing companies in the world not only having silent CPU coolers, but also offering chipset/video card cooling, water-cooling, fanless cases, power supply?s, audio products,... And still, they continue to develop even more products. We take a closer look at their latest HTPC case, the HD135.

Introduction & Design

Introduction

A colleague reviewer tested the HD165 HTPC case from Zalman in March this year, today I will examine the smaller version, called HD135.

In this article we will talk about the cooling performance of this case, and how much noise this will cost you. Furthermore we will describe the usability and how easy/hard it was to install our hardware. Let's have a look at the design.

Design

This is how the case arrived at my place. In fact there was a second box around this one, but on this picture you see how you will get it from your store.

The front looks very clean with only 1 button and 1 led. In the middle we can find some open space for your cd/dvd drive, and if we look a little bit lower we'll see that there is a built in LCD screen. The backside shows nothing special, but do mind that you can add 2 60mm fans in those tiny holes you see in the middle. Another thing you have to know is that Zalman has made 12cm holes so that fresh air can be sucked in from both sides (left and right) of the case.

Zalman left some space for a floppy bay. We can also find front panel connectors: USB, audio and 1394 hidden by a simple door.

A closer look at the LCD screen which sits under the dvd bay. At first boot up you see Zalman logo and text, once Windows XP has booted up correctly you will be able to put other messages on that screen with the software that comes with the case.

The finish of the metal is super, I couldn?t find sharp etches, a very clean job there by Zalman.

This is what the feet look like. Nice finish for sure.

At the back of the case we can find 2 thumbscrews which hold the top panel in place. Let?s take a look inside ->